It's been a very busy week for me and my family. We were all in San Pedro together and wanted to eat dinner together, but were dealing with some logistical issues (I needed to get to the airport, my sister needed to drive 60 miles home), so we caravaned from my grandparents house, not totally sure when we were headed. My Aunt Pam called up to the front car, "How about Ante's?" she asked. We all looked at grandma, who has the ultimate say on restaurant choice. She nodded and said, "sounds good!"

Ante's Restaurant is a Croatian restaurant in San Pedro that I have been going to since I was a child. Grandma and grandpa used to take my sister Annie and me and we always felt like it was a special dinner out. Diners sit in high, red leather booths and are served crisp, cold crudites before their main meal. For years, we've used Ante's for family events -- we had a party for my sister's first communion at Ante's and three years ago, we celebrated my grandparents' 60th anniversary there.

Tony Perkov, the Ante's owner, greeted us warmly. "Mrs. Silva," he said sadly and gave my grandmother a hug. My grandfather is sick, which is the reason we were all in San Pedro, and in chatting with Tony it became clear that he had heard the news. A customer had been in a few days earlier and had told Tony about grandpa. San Pedro, despite its proximity to Los Angeles, has an incredibly small town mentality. It was no surprise that he'd heard about grandpa. We reminisced with him about grandpa's restaurant and he brought me an ice-cold martini, and brought the others at the table a liter of red wine.

"To Hank," we all toasted and began our meal.

Grandma, with good reason, has been eating very little for the past couple of weeks. As she settled into her fried chicken dinner, however, you never would have known that she'd had little appetite.

Mom ordered fried shrimp, and the vegetables that came alongside the shrimp seemed to be frozen, pre-fab vegetables, but as we looked closer we realized that they were fresh vegetables cut to look like a frozen mix. They were deliciously comforting, as was the entire meal. Ante's is known for Croatian dishes such as mostaccioli, cabbage rolls and salumi, and comfort foods like pot roast and prime rib.

The food at Ante's is good, but as I reflect upon it, I think that the experience is meaningful to me because it's a part of our family history. Sometimes nothing takes the place of going to a restaurant where you're treated like family and where everyone knows your name.

I know that many phone calls lately have gone unreturned, blog posts have gone unwritten, and photos have gone un-uploaded. The truth is that I've been busy. Eating.

About week ago, it was cold and rainy here in San Francisco. My throat was hurting, and I was tired from a weekend of parties. I sat across from a friend at Thai House Express. M had suggested the location for a bowl of chicken noodle soup.

I took a bite.

"This is the best thing I've eaten in a week," I said.

It was sublime. After a second bite, it had become my favorite chicken soup in San Francisco. The broth was clean and flavorful, the wide rice noodles and chicken transcendent with tiny crispy bits of God-knows-what that added an extra punch of flavor that I loved.

"What about Shin Toe Bul Yi?" he asked.

"Oh yah, and then there was that good dish at King of Thai Noodles, and -- oh yah! Pizzetta 211!"

When you've found your favorite chicken noodle soup in San Francisco and it is probably the third or fourth best thing you've eaten in 10 days, you know it's been a great few days.

M lived in San Francisco for years and was back visiting. He had a restaurant list, scribbled on the back of an envelope, in his back pocket the whole time he was here. I was game to join him at quite a few (but not nearly all), and added a couple suggestions of my own to create a memorable trip of food in my own city.

Shin Toe Bul Yi. This Korean restaurant in the Sunset is known by many to have the best fried chicken in San Francisco. I love it, find the beef kalbi and panchan to be ok, and think that they have the best menu translations in all of San Francisco. Can't find the fried chicken? Look for "Chicken Small Pieces. Little spicy. (Deep fried)." Tip: the fried chicken is only available at dinner time.

Hing Lung. I've only ever had Hing Lung duck jook to go, but it's like
magic to eat it late at night with chili paste stirred in. It's on
Broadway in Chinatown and I've heard that the only thing to eat here is
the jook and the donuts.

SPQR. M knew I wanted to take him here, and at 8 pm on a Saturday night announced that we should go. "No way in hell," was my response. I knew how popular it had gotten, and put my foot down. He persisted and we ended up getting in 45 minutes later though the quoted time was 2.5 hours. I didn't pull any weight (not that I have any to pull), or ask for any special favors. It was just a fortuitous question that got us in. And I'll never tell how.

Pizzetta 211. If I ever leave San Francisco, Pizzetta is one of the restaurants that I miss the most. There is not much that compares to whiling away the afternoon in the corner seats of Pizzetta with perfectly executed pizzas, good company, and a quintessential San Francisco feel. We shared two pizzas and a salad -- the winner was a rich no-tomato pizza with chard and potatoes. Delicious.

NOPA. I won't go on record with
the number of hours that Stephanie and I were bellied up to the bar
table here, but it was a fun Sunday afternoon/evening. M. joined us
a bit later in the evening (after we'd tasted most of their absinthe
cocktails) and we had a good meal, highlighted by white beans in tomato
sauce and a fantastic dessert.

King of Thai Noodles(Clement at 4th location). Pad Kee Mao, spicy with beef (stir fried dal rice noodles green long bean, bell pepper, thai chili and basil) is the best thing in the city to eat at 2 in the morning.

Incanto. This was my favorite meal at Incanto ever and went a long way in helping me understand why people love it so much. We sat at the bar, and had a quick bite of pastas before leaving for a busy Saturday night.

Tajine. Tajine wasn't on his list, but hit the spot one day as I picked it up to go. A highlight was the chicken with preserved lemons and olives.

Thai House Express (Larkin location). As stated above: Best. Chicken. Noodle. Soup in the City. We had other great things, but it was all eclipsed by the soup.

A16. You all know how much I love the new little sister to A16 (Yes, I've decided that SPQR is a woman -- sassy and cool and oh-so San Franciscan). So the truth is that A16's glory had dulled in my mind a tad in the past few months. I have so many memories of A16, though, and have had so many stellar meals that this apathy was not going to last long: My love for A16 is back in force. Arriving close to 10 on a Tuesday night, we were seated immediately. With four of us, we were able to order a good portion of the menu. I am pleased to say that the pizzas were spot on, the tuna conserva appetizer was remarkable, and that Liza Shaw must be performing miracles in the kitchen.

Yamo. This is a Burmese restaurant in the Mission -- a place that M has mentioned many times as something he craves. The take-out food that he brought me -- especially the curry chicken -- was good enough that I would go back.

Cafe Rouge. I have to admit to mixed feelings about Cafe Rouge. While I think that it's fine, I've never found it to be revelatory. However, it's difficult to knock a place with a $1 oyster happy hour with deliciously executed oysters. This restaurant wasn't on his list or mine -- was just a last minute decision as he headed out of town. It was a lovely meal, and a good way to end a grand run of restaurants.

It's been an incredibly busy couple of work weeks. Thought you'd enjoy a glimpse into my email outbox from the past few days, as there has been a lot of food chatter among my friends and me.

-------to: APsubj: tonight

I am on BART in oakland and it's 11 pm. And I have a bag with a turkey leg and sorghum molasses sitting next to me.

What the hell is this life.

-------to: SL & JBsubj: la trip

We have a reservation at Mozza. and for the record, that was like calling a radio station.

-------to: ALDsubj: potstickers

I randomly bought Trader Joe's potstickers this week in a fit of "I-don't-have-time-to-cook-from-scratch". Made them today and no matter how I dress them up (side of arugula salad with soy, rice vinegar and sesame oil and topped with black sesame seeds and chili oil) they still taste exactly like they did when we were Juniors in school making them in the microwave in the dorm.

On Monday, January 7, you'll find me at the free CUESA panel discussion called "Is it safe to eat? A panel discussion about food safety solutions"

This event features several interesting panelists and I am looking forward to an high level discussion about food safety.

From the CUESA website:

panelists: C. Noelle Ferdon, Senior Organizer, Food and Water WatchKevin Zelig Golden, Staff Attorney, Center for Food SafetyElisa Odabashian, Director of the West Coast Office, Consumers Uniondescription: E. coli, Salmonella, GMOs, pesticides…every week, it seems, news arrives of the latest potential danger in our food supply. When the very thing that is meant to nourish us may also do us harm, how can consumers be conscious without being paranoid? A panel of food safety experts will discuss strategies for making our food safer and the powerful forces that are keeping the status quo in place. Learn about the latest advocacy efforts, proposed legislation, and legal actions that these groups are taking to ensure that our basic human needs are met without compromising our health, and find out how your food choices can make a difference. Join us at 6:30 for a reception with light refreshments. Discussion begins at 7. This event is free and open to the public.

I was fortunate to be able to interview Kathy and Steve Fosmark yesterday for the article -- they are husband and wife and in the fishing industry. Talking to them really brought the devastation of this oil spill home for me -- when you are talking to real people whose livelihoods are being threatened by human error and slow response, it's hard to ignore what's happened.

One of the things I didn't talk about in the KQED article is the fact that the fishermen have been pushing to be part of an emergency response team, and are frustrated by the fact that this plan wasn't in place for the spill. My understanding is that the boats already are required to have equipment which would make them perfect soldiers to help contain an oil spill. And they are highly motivated to help in any way possible. All they need is the green light to be able to help.

As an update to this morning's post, the Governor has suspended fishing and crabbing until December 1 at the earliest. From the Chronicle article:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
issued an executive order late this morning suspending all fishing and
crabbing for human consumption in areas affected by the Cosco Busan
fuel spill until at least Dec. 1.

The ban includes all of San Francisco Bay, along with affected
shorelines, coastlines and waters of San Francisco, Alameda, Contra
Costa, Marin, San Mateo, Solano and Sonoma counties.

(If you are reading this post on a RSS reader, you might want to click through to Life Begins @ 30 for the slideshow.

As we entered the Taco House last week, I steadied my grandfather on my arm. "The taco is $1.29," he said. "When I bought the Taco House, we sold it for 25 cents." Two women in front of the restaurant became really animated when they saw him. "You know who I just met," one exclaimed into her cell phone, "I met Bill. You know THE Bill."

My grandfather's name is Hank Silva, but in the Los Angeles community he is often known as "Bill". He bought Bill's Taco House in 1960 from the original Bill who had owned it for eleven years. Grandpa owned the restaurant for 25 years and many of his customers just assumed his name was Bill. He never corrected them.

The story that led my grandfather to own the Taco House is a real up-by-your-bootstraps, American-way story. He grew up very poor -- moving around, but mainly in the Central Valley -- and went to school very sporadically only through elementary school. During some of his youth, he picked fruit and cotton up and down the Central Valley -- figs, prunes, rhubarb, and strawberries. When the workers would break for lunch, grandpa and his best friend Tony would pretend that they were going to lunch as well. But they didn't have any money and didn't eat. When lunch was over, they would come back to the field, chewing on a toothpick and pretending that their bellies were full from the feast that they'd just eaten.

In 1939, grandpa had a small amount of money saved and felt that he was destined for something greater than ranch work. He wanted to leave the valley, but didn't know where to go. "San Francisco or Los Angeles," he told his friend Tony at the bus station. Grandpa had been waffling about which direction to go. "Just go buy me a ticket to either place." Tony chose Los Angeles. "You're going to Hollywood," Tony told grandpa, in a decision that was pivotal for grandpa's life and the future of our family.

Grandpa met my grandmother in 1945 (a great story for another day), served in the Navy in World War II, and then returned home to support his family. He held many jobs including working at a bra factory (where grandma worked as well), selling Baby Butler children's furniture, and selling tract homes in Riverside County. In the late fifties he was working at a trucking company and had an accident -- he fell from the dock and injured his elbow. The insurance company compensated him for his injury by giving him $10,000 (the equivalent of $69,000 today).

That $10,000 insurance check is the money that grandpa used to buy the Taco House. The restaurant is on Martin Luther King Blvd. in Los Angeles, about a mile east of USC. "We were open until four a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays," mom recently told me, "and there would be a line down the block after the clubs in the area let out." The taco that they were all lining up for is, what I could imagine, the perfect drunk food. It's greasy and full of spices and a fully craveable meal.

Every once in a while, someone who had just been released from jail would come into the Taco House because they'd been craving Taco House food in the slammer. Celebrities also came into the Taco House -- sometimes limos would pull up and people like Barry White and the singers of the Fifth Dimension would come in to get their taco fix. Many people who grew up in the neighborhood and became successful -- singers, boxers, politicians -- would continue to return to Bill's Taco House. "I remember when Barry White was coming in and no one knew who he was," grandpa told me recently, "and then he kept coming back when he was famous."

Recently on a trip to the Taco House alone, I tried to assess the taco. It's a seasoned hamburger patty, grilled and cut into three pieces, with a slice of cheese ("What kind of cheese, Grandpa?" "Yellow cheese."), diced tomatoes, shredded lettuce, and a spicy chili gravy all wrapped with a fried taco shell that is more soft than crunchy but with a fried flavor. Today's taco is pretty true to the original recipe, and the one that grandpa used. I laughed the other day at a user review on the Internet recently that called it "good Mexican food." I agree more with a different user who called it "good junk food."

"We would get a delivery of fresh ground beef every day," grandpa said on the drive home last week, "and on Saturdays, we would order 500 pounds of beef." Each taco uses less than a quarter of a pound of beef, so that's a heck of a lot of tacos.

Grandpa was really well known in the community. It's still a treat to run into people who went to Bill's as kids in the sixties and seventies and talk to them about what they remember. Aside from selling popular food, he provided the land for a Head Start school next door to the Taco House that is there to this day, and gave back to the community in many other ways. When the Watts riots occurred in 1965, neighbors urged grandpa to leave as the riots were breaking out, and spray painted "brother" on the wall of the Taco House. The Taco House was saved from being burned or looted while businesses all around were destroyed.

Grandpa sold the Taco House in 1985. It's still in existence, and in fact there are now one or two other "Bill's Taco Houses" around town, though I have never been to them.

It's hard to know where our family would be had grandpa not come to Los Angeles, or had he not owned the Taco House. Much of the family -- my mom, my uncle, my godmother, my grandmother and even my dad -- worked at the Taco House at one point or another and it's a major part of our family history. My grandparents have taught me so many life lessons, but grandpa's ownership of the Taco House taught me some big ones:

Make people happy by giving them good, honest food.

Treat them with respect, no matter what their background or social status.

Intuition and real world experience trump formal education.

Once you have a dream, work and work and work until you see it to fruition.

The original Bill's Taco House is located at 219 E Martin Luther King Jr Blvd., Los Angeles, 323-233-1587.

Citing safety and health concerns, along with cries of "unfair competition" from brick and mortar restaurants in the area, the City of Salinas is considering an outright ban on "mobile vendors" or a severe restriction on their business. In January, the city set a cap on the vendor permits at the current count of 31 and no new permits will be issued causing a gradual fade-out of taco trucks in Salinas. Next week, an as-of-yet unpublicized proposal is scheduled to go before the city council that will further restrict the taco trucks. The proposal could include possible time restrictions instructing taco trucks to only operate between 6 pm and 6 am, could require that the vendors move their trucks every 15 minutes to one hour, or could cause taco trucks to have to move off of public streets and on to private property zoned for the business.

The most recent Consumer Expenditure Report (pdf) was published in February 2007 and refers to 2005 data. It's really fascinating to read, and has some interesting statistics about our food spending.

The chart below shows how our food spending breaks down. Of course, this picture is painted using very broad strokes, but it's still rather enlightening. The dollar amounts quoted are an average over the sample, which generally represents 1.3 wage earners and a total of 2.5 family members (1.2 non-wage earning members).

(click the chart to make it bigger and readable!)

In 2005, the amount that we spent on food at home dropped by 1.5%. But the amount that we spent away from home increased by 8.3%. Most interesting, though, is the difference in how we are spending our at-home food dollars. Looks like we're eating less meat and more dairy. Or is it that meat is just getting less expensive but we're eating just as much of it?

"The drop in food at home expenditures in 2005 was driven by a significant decrease (13.1 percent) in spending on meats, poultry, fish and eggs. Other components of food at home also decreased–cereals and bakery products fell 1.5 percent, and fruits and vegetables declined 1.7 percent– but those changes were not statistically significant. Expenditures for two components of food at home increased in 2005: Dairy products were up 2.0 percent and other food at home increased by a significant 7.7 percent."

I wonder what constitutes something in the "other food at home" category? Maybe fish on a log?